Moscow, Dec 3: After weeks of turmoil over a US-backed peace plan, Russian President Vladimir Putin held about five hours of closed-door talks in the Kremlin with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and presidential adviser Jared Kushner, as Washington pushes to salvage a possible deal to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine.The meeting, one of the major US-Russia exchanges since the war began, came amid Moscow’s fresh warnings to Europeans as Kyiv and Europe grew more concerned about the direction of the talks.
On Tuesday, a smiling Putin welcomed Witkoff and Kushner and asked about their walk through central Moscow, which included a stroll across Red Square past the mausoleum of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and along the walls of the Kremlin. “It is a magnificent city,” Witkoff replied.